


Lightning

by galfridian



Category: Hana Yori Dango | Boys Over Flowers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-13
Updated: 2007-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/pseuds/galfridian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soujirou's decisions are most often based upon his understanding that life rarely offers anything other than once-in-a-lifetime situations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning

Soujirou’s decisions are most often based upon his understanding that life rarely offers anything other than once-in-a-lifetime situations. Opportunities. Loves. He doesn’t bother categorizing his decisions by importance and weight—he simply makes a conscious choice with all things to avoid regrets. Much as it grieves him to make so trite a comparison, he can’t help but liken it to lightning—never striking the same place twice. Nothing is ever the same twice. He finds the same to be generally true of people, as well.

Some of the girls Soujirou surrounds himself with don’t understand this point of view on life. For them, carpe diem is sometimes a bit too dangerous and they sometimes regard him with distrust and uncertainty in their eyes. He offers his word that he won’t hurt them—sincere promises, because he knows he can find a willing girl three steps or less away from the unwilling one if he needs to—so long as their hearts aren’t set on having his. He encourages them, then, to act upon this moment, this one time of genuine attraction and opportunity. Rarely do they not comply.

To Soujirou’s relief, many of the girls do get it. Girls who are willing to abandon whomever they’re with for a few hours with him. Girls who expect nothing of him but simple and generic compliments and a high-class fun time. These girls allow him to rest comfortably in his notions, allowing him a temporary reprieve from the nagging feeling that he’s really got it all wrong—a feeling generally accompanied by the bright brown eyes of a sincere and gentle face. This feeling occasionally causes him sleepless hours; it’s difficult to think he’s the one who’s lost. Seated in between two nameless girls—either of whom he could have forgotten before—he feels confident.

Though his friends are changing rapidly before his eyes, becoming reserved men, it’s still six months after Tsukasa and Tsukushi’s engagement before he truly perceives that his understanding is undeniably, irrevocably mistaken.

He’s sitting in F4’s usual spot in the club, half-listening to Akira’s jokes—meant only to impress the girls currently on his arms, anyway—when he notices a girl gazing at him. He wastes no time with games. She’s at his side in minutes; before long, she’s trailing kissing along his collar bone. “This one’s enthusiastic,” he quips, winking at Akira. Turning his attention to the girl, he asks, “Why the rush? Don’t want to upset mother and father by missing curfew?” In a way, he regrets the words as soon as they’re spoken. It’s usually Tsukasa who’s the callous one, but he’s been feeling off and awkward tonight and he can’t seem to beat it

The girl rolls her eyes at his remark, but chooses not to respond to it. “Well,” she states simply and honestly, “it’s not every night a girl’s with F4, is it?”

Unnervingly, Soujirou realizes he should be more pleased with this statement than he is. He ignores this thought because there’s…something…off about this girl’s comment. “Fair enough. Of course, you’re not really with F4—just us.”

“Like it matters? Being seen with just one of you is like being seen with all of you.” She shrugs, genuinely unconcerned with the uniqueness of her statement. “Which two am I with, anyway?”

“Mimasaka Akira,” offers Akira politely, but Soujirou’s known him long enough to note the tenseness in his tone. It occurs to him then that his friend’s behavior has been different as of late, too, and that he should consider asking him about it. As for now, though…

“Nishikado Soujirou.” His tone, however, is purposefully and bluntly irritated.

“What?” She questions with a laugh. “I’m supposed to care which of you I’m with? Why? Your status means to me what my beauty means to you. You don’t care who I am—you haven’t pretended to care—so why should I care which one of the infamous F4 has his arm around me?”

Soujirou isn’t sure what’s more disconcerting—her apparent lacking conformist reverence for the F4 name or the inescapable fact that she’s right. For a heavy moment, Soujirou is speechless. It isn’t until he realizes that much of the activity nearby has quieted as a result of the girl’s comment that he speaks. “If you can’t appreciate the full reality of this opportunity, don’t bother pretending.” Though he’s obviously dismissing her, it’s Soujirou that stands and walks away.

 

 

Though consciously he doesn’t have a predetermined destination when he begins weaving his bike down street after street, Soujirou isn’t surprised when he’s suddenly on Yuuki’s street. He parks his bike a few houses down from hers and sits for a few minutes, considering the implications of his effortless arrival here—of all places. He isn’t sure what he should make of this or what might become of this visit, but his fallback instincts drive him to find out. He discards his helmet and determinedly walks down the pavement toward Yuuki’s house.

He stops mid-step when he sees her. The lights are off in her house, but she’s sitting on the front steps with a small lamp, clutching a book. He’s smiling a bit before he realizes it, because even though he didn’t know before that Yuuki liked to read, it seems very much like her to pour over a book like this—perhaps not even knowing that it’s so late. She’s wearing an oversized robe—probably her father’s—over pajamas and slippers. So simple and…well, usual…yet he finds that his heart is somehow beating a little faster.

“Yuuki-chan,” he calls quietly.

She gives a barely discernable start, but recovers quickly with a genuine smile. “Nishikado-san,” she calls back, rising to meet him on the path. She bows quickly, then asks, “Why are you here?”

He’s not sure what to tell her, but lying is never an option with Yuuki, so he simply tells her that he doesn’t know. He stares at the stars, recalling Tsukasa’s obsession with them—specifically Saturn—and wonders if there are any signs there for him. “My mind is wandering so often lately that it’s made my body restless, I think.” He sighs. “Anyway, I’m tired of parties and cookie-cutter people right now.”

He looks at her, not sure what to expecting, but not expecting what he sees. She looks much more tired now than just moments before and seems wearier of him than she’s been in months. “Nishikado-san,” she whispers, “what is it you want?”

There isn’t much right now he feels he really comprehends, but he does understand the underlying, unspoken fear in her question. She’s worried he’s come wanting her—wanting her to give something she can’t and won’t give. He opens his mouth to assure that it isn’t her he’s come for, but foresees how the words might hurt her…and he doesn’t know that he hasn’t, in some sense, come for her. “I don’t know. Truthfully.”

She frowns a bit, but offers her hand to him. “Come on, then. Sit with me.” He takes her hand and lets her lead him to her front steps.

“Ever feel like you’ve deceived yourself into believing a generalization or a cliché just because it’s comforting?” This question is asked before he considers that she probably feels she’s fooled and deceived herself too many times for the sake of caring for him.

“Yes. I think everyone believes those things sometimes, though. It’s our attempt to rationalize what we do.”

“Do you believe in second chances? That some things, maybe, come your way more than one time?”

“Of course.” She says this so matter-of-factly that Soujirou isn’t surprised at the wave of comfort that washes over him, despite the concept of second chances contradicting a view he’s held so desperately.

He forces a laugh, feeling that he might hate himself in this moment—because there’s so much that he should have let go of by now (and he hasn’t) and there’s so much he should hold onto right now (and he isn’t). “I think I’m a little lost,” he admits. “And maybe a little desperate. I don’t know, Yuuki-chan…what do you think I am?”

The question is mostly rhetorical. He doesn’t expect a response to a question he’s suddenly too cowardly to answer. But Yuuki surprises him—like she always does, somehow—by answering.

“Lightning.” There’s something in her voice—a sort of thoughtfulness and distance that tells him whatever uncertainty she felt just minutes before has given way to the softness she has for him. She offers a tentative smile. “You’re generally easy to predict, but sometimes you break your patterns.”

He considers this. It startles Soujirou a little that she should compare him to the thing he’s so commonly compared life to, but he finds that he agrees. Thinking about the girls who fill his nights, he realizes they’re all the same. Maybe they come from different places and have different minds, but he knows—guiltily—that there are few he’d set apart from the others.  


"Sometimes you break things a little. But then you’re lightning and even though you can be one of the most painful experiences a person can endure, you’re still beautiful and impossible to forget.”

He tilts his head to glance at her, but catches her eyes and finds himself staring—distantly, he realizes he’s still holding her hand. A thought occurs to him, then, and he speaks before thinking, “There’s always sand.”

“Sand?”

“When lightning strikes sand—sometimes, under the right conditions, it creates a substance that can be formed into something beautiful.”

They’re still holding each other’s gaze, so Yuuki can’t hide the hope in her eyes. “Okay, Soujirou.” It’s the first time she’s called him by his first name and he’s feeling too much right now to pretend it doesn’t sound remarkably new coming from her.

 

 

Spots of sunlight are peering through the trees in Yuuki’s yard before they realize how long they’ve talked. Soujirou suddenly feels guilty; Yuuki’s eyes are heavy with sleep and she’s been leaning on him for support for several hours. “Yuuki-chan,” he whispers, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have kept you awake so long.”

She smiles sweetly, her eye half-closed. “You needed to talk.” She tenses as she pushes back a yawn. “Friends don’t turn each other away on nights like that.”

“Friends?” Soujirou echoes, inching his body closer to hers as she shivers against a breeze. She nods, then lays her head on his shoulder. “Doesn’t sound right.”

She sits back up quickly, concern and confusion darkening her features. “No?”

He smiles—a smile that’s meant to but simple and small, but turns into a wide grin—and pulls her back to him. “Yuuki-chan,” he mutters, kissing her hair. “You’re sand.”


End file.
